How did farmer-dominated regions of Punjab, UP vote in the Assembly elections?

There were a lot of speculations about the 2022 Assembly Elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh due to the extensive year-long farmers’ protest against the Centre's now-repealed three farm laws.

While older parties in Punjab played the farm laws card to win over the state, ‘outsider’ AAP appeared set to register a comprehensive victory.

Meanwhile, farmer leader Balbir Singh Rajewal-led SSM could not win any seat in Punjab. Euphoric over the success of the farmers' protest, which continued for over a year at Delhi borders, several farm groups pledge to bring about a 'political change'.

Also Read | Interactive | How BJP performed in Uttar Pradesh's Jatland

Even though it was expected that the farm laws repeal in December 2021 would have a positive impact on BJP’s performance in Punjab, it failed to do so.

Since the beginning of assembly elections in Punjab, the party could barely touch 20 seats out of the 117 seats at once over the years. In 2017, BJP secured three seats and expected a raise in the seats in this year’s elections but despite the rigorous campaigning and farm law repeal, it could only get two seats.

AAP’s calibrated campaign strategy which was free from hyperbole gave hope to the electorates in Punjab amid the drug menace and sacrilege incidents.

Also Read | People's decision paramount, hope newly-elected govts work for farmers: Rakesh Tikait

The party’s narrative of ‘Log badlaav chahte hain’ worked in favour of AAP while promising a development model more or less similar to that of Delhi. The people of Punjab could trust the party’s realistic poll promises and support the farmers’ agitation against the three-farm laws.

However, BJP’s weak presence and internal feud in Congress in Punjab turned things in favour of AAP.

In Gurdaspur, Pathankot and Hoshiarpur, poll analysts were expecting BJP to win on the Hindutva narrative as the majority of the farmers are Hindu Rajputs. But, apart from Sham Chaurasi (SC) constituency, BJP couldn’t manage to win any seats in this year’s assembly polls.

Also Read — BSP's meltdown helped BJP recoup OBC losses to SP

While BJP managed to enter the Hoshiarpur district with Sham Chaurasi (SC) constituency victory, it failed to retain its seat in Gurdaspur’s Sujanpur constituency. Congress was the winning party and AAP managed to be the runner-up party.

However, the case was not the same in farmer leader-dominated regions of Uttar Pradesh for BJP. The Party’s handling of the devastating second wave of Covid last year and the agrarian unrest over the three contentious farm laws did not have a major impact on its electoral fortunes in western UP.

As per the Election Commission data, BJP won or lead in the bulk of the 113 seats in western UP, where the farmers’ agitation was more belligerent.

Also Read | Cong misled farmers in the name of loan waiver; Modi gave them Rs 6,000 every year: Nadda

Even in the most unexpected region, BJP made a clean sweep by winning all eight seats in Lakhimpur Kheri, where a lot of political heat was generated over the Tikunia violence, which left four farmers among eight people dead.

While Lakhimpur Kheri has been a key attack point of the Opposition, BJP made an impressive win in the Nighasan assembly, BJP's Shashank Verma defeated his closest Samajwadi Party rival R S Kushvaha by 41,207 votes.

Among the other seats, BJP’s sitting MLA from Pallia Harvinder Kumar alias Romi Sahni defeated SP's Preetinder Singh by a margin of 38,129 votes.

The Gola seat was taken by Arvind Giri who defeated Vinay Tiwari of SP by 29,294 votes while the Srinagar seat was won by Manju Tyagi who defeated SP's Ramsharan by 17,608 votes.

Check out the latest videos from DH: